Mars from VMC, February 29, 2016

After a long hiatus, Mars Express' Visual Monitoring Camera returned to work on Leap Day, 2016, taking a photo of Mars in late northern summer. The bright feature at the top is the north polar cap. At center right is the Elysium volcanic complex. Gale crater, home to the Curiosity rover, is visible to the south of Elysium. This is a stack of three VMC images, enlarged to 150% of the original size.

That you can see all of the north polar cap tells you that it's northern summer; Mars' northern summer solstice was January 3. It's actually not too different from the season at which Curiosity arrived on Mars, not quite two Mars years ago. Speaking of Curiosity, you can see Gale crater in this portrait of Mars. Here's an annotated view:

ESA / Emily Lakdawalla

Features visible in February 29, 2016 VMC image of Mars

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